Former health secretary says revisions to proposed reforms have ‘the makings of a policy disaster for the NHS and, maybe in time, a political disaster for the government’ Follow the latest developments in the NHS reforms live blog Alan Milburn, a former Labour health secretary, has described the coalition’s watered-down NHS reforms as the “biggest car crash” in the service’s history. Milburn, who is currently advising David Cameron on social mobility, said taxpayers faced writing “a very large cheque” as billions of pounds in efficiency savings would not be achieved as a result of “the screech of skidding tyres” caused by the government’s U-turn. Milburn, who stood down as Labour MP for Darlington at the last general election, used an article for the Daily Telegraph to condemn the revised health plans unveiled earlier this week following pressure from the Liberal Democrats and the health lobby. Milburn, who served as health secretary for four years under Tony Blair, wrote: “The government’s health reforms are the biggest car crash in NHS history. The temptation to elevate short-term politics above long-term policy proved too much for both David Cameron and Nick Clegg. “Many in both camps inside the coalition consider the U-turn a triumph. But it has the makings of a policy disaster for the NHS and, maybe in time, a political disaster for the government. It leaves both health policy and British politics in a very different place.” Milburn said Cameron was likely to be seen as more “protectionist” than either of his Labour predecessors, despite his insistence that the changes were pro-market. The promise of the coalition was that it would go where New Labour feared to tread when it came to public service reform. There would be no no-go areas,” Milburn wrote. “In fact David Cameron’s retreat has taken his party to a far less reformist and more protectionist position than that adopted by Tony Blair and even that of … Gordon Brown.” Milburn described the new policy as the “biggest nationalisation since Nye Bevan created the NHS in 1948″. Cameron had handed over control to “the daddy of all quangos”, the NHS Commissioning Board. The ex-cabinet minister said scrapping the 2013 deadline for giving GP consortiums control of commissioning would result in a “patchwork of decision-making for years to come”. Turning to the need to make £20bn of efficiency savings, he asked: “So how will the NHS books be balanced? By the usual device which policymakers have deployed every decade or so in the NHS: A very large cheque. “It was precisely the situation David Cameron and George Osborne were trying to avoid. Sorry George, but the cash you were saving in your pre-election budget for tax cuts will now have to be spent on a bail-out for the health service.” Milburn, who introduced a greater degree of private sector provision in the 2000 NHS Plan, said government backtracking on reforms presented an “open goal” for Ed Miliband’s Labour party. He levelled criticism at Labour for showing signs this week of a retreat into the “comfort zone” of public sector protectionism and threw down the gauntlet to the Labour leader to champion progressive radical reform. “It would be unwise in my view for Labour to concede rather than contest the reform territory,” he warned. “It now has an opportunity to restake its claim to be the party of progressive, radical reform.” NHS Health Health policy Public services policy Alan Milburn Hélène Mulholland guardian.co.uk
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John Ruggie, UN special representative for business and human rights, warns justice minister changes will be damaging A senior UN official has warned the government that cuts to legal aid and changes to lawyers’ fees will prevent claims, such as those in the Trafigura case, being brought against multinational businesses. Professor John Ruggie, a Harvard University lawyer who is the UN secretary-general’s special representative for business and human rights, wrote to the UK justice minister Jonathan Djanogly saying he was concerned about the “disincentives” being introduced. The letter, sent last month, is a damaging critique of Ministry of Justice plans to cut £350m a year from the legal aid budget and reform conditional fee agreements so claimants would have to use any compensation to pay their lawyers’ success fees. Ken Clarke, the justice secretary, has made clear his desire to reduce “spiralling legal costs” and restrict no win, no fee agreements. A sentencing and legal aid bill is expected to be introduced into the Commons in the coming days. Ruggie’s letter, passed to opposition justice spokesman Andy Slaughter and seen by the Guardian, is a clear attempt to deflect the government from what he fears will be a damaging outcome. “Three related aspects of the proposed reforms could, when implemented together, constitute a significant barrier to legitimate business-related human rights claims being brought before UK courts in situations where alternative sources of remedy are unavailable,” he wrote. “Legal aid is no longer available in the UK for many cases against multinational enterprises and most such cases are currently funded through conditional fee agreements.” The plans would render such agreements too costly for claimants, he said. “It is quite possible that in complex human rights claims against businesses, the success fee could equal or even exceed the compensation awarded, given the financial risks for law firms of bringing such claims,” Ruggie explained.” Similar problems could deter personal injury claimants who might, even if successful, “walk out of court no better off than at the start of the litigation …The impact of this reform is likely to be significant.” It will be a “real disincentive to what is already a very small pool of lawyers willing to take on human rights-related cases against multinational enterprises”. The letter does not refer to Trafigura, but his concerns clearly encompass future similar cases. The British oil trading company was sued in a class action brought on behalf of thousands of west African victims who claimed they had been harmed by waste dumping in Ivory Coast. Martyn Day, a senior partner at the law firm Leigh Day & Co, which brought the case, welcomed Ruggie’s letter. “We acted for 30,000 impoverished Ivorians – the no win, no fee scheme was the only way we could bring the case,” he said. “We were facing Trafigura – one of the largest private companies in the world, worth many billions – and the costs in the case were astronomic. The expenses we had to pay out alone ran to many millions and we had a team of 50 lawyers working on the case. We simply could never have run the case if we did not have the prospect of obtaining the success fee from the defendants. There is no question but that our Ivorian clients would never have received justice if the proposed bill was in place at that time.”Slaughter said: “If cases like Trafigura aren’t brought to justice, it sends the worst kind of signal. Corporate wrongdoing will flourish around the world and lives will be lost. “It is yet another sign of extraordinary incompetence by Ken Clarke. This policy needs to be withdrawn and drastically revised before they try and force it through parliament.” The Corporate Responsibility coalition, which campaigns to hold multinationals to account, said it believed many similar actions against UK companies, including claims by South African miners for asbestos-related diseases, would no longer be feasible. The Labour MP Lisa Nandy, who campaigns on legal issues, said: “This government has ignored the views of NGOs and leading experts and chosen to plough ahead with proposals which will be devastating for victims of human rights abuses. “Structures for holding companies like Trafigura to account are few and far between. If the coalition is committed to human rights, the minister should be looking at how these can be strengthened, not weakened.” Clarke maintains that the British legal system is one of the most costly in the world and is determined to reduce the cost to the taxpayer of litigation. The MoJ has declined to confirm precisely when the bill will be published. Legal aid Trafigura Kenneth Clarke Owen Bowcott guardian.co.uk
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Bin Laden’s second-in-command to lead global terror group, says al-Qaida-affiliated website • Bin Laden’s inner circle An al-Qaida-affiliated website says Egypt-born Ayman al-Zawahri has succeeded Osama bin Laden as head of the terror network. Bin Laden was killed in a US commando raid in Pakistan last month. Al-Zawahri, who will turn 60 next week, had been Bin Laden’s second-in-command . He is the son of an upper middle-class Egyptian family of doctors and scholars. His father was a pharmacology professor at Cairo University’s medical school, and his grandfather was the grand imam of Al-Azhar University, a premier center of religious study. The announcement was posted on Thursday on a website known to be affiliated with the terror network. al-Qaida Global terrorism Egypt Middle East Osama bin Laden guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Tupac Shakur would have turned 40 tomorrow, and his 1996 murder remains unsolved. But a felon serving a life sentence is claiming to clear up the 1994 assault of the rapper: Dexter Isaac tells AllHipHop that he robbed and shot Shakur in Manhattan after being hired to do so by…
Continue reading …The hackers known as Lulz Security have struck again, this time taking down the CIA website, reports the All Things D blog . “Tango down,” the group tweeted before 6pm EST when CIA.gov went down. LulzSec also recently hit the US Senate , among other high-profile targets . Today’s strike came after…
Continue reading …If you’re a woman living in Madison County, Mississippi, you might wanna consider moving. Females in certain parts of the country are dying younger than they did a generation ago, according to new data. In general, life expectancies of women in the US have dropped the most they have since…
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Education secretary Michael Gove targets schools that have fallen below the government’s minimum standard The 200 weakest primary schools in England will be placed under new management by the beginning of the next school year, the education secretary Michael Gove will say on Thursday. It is the most direct interference in primary schools by a government that has, so far, been mainly focused on intervention on secondary schools. Gove will announce the weakest 200 primary schools will become academies in 2012. He is to target those schools that have, for five years, fallen below the government’s “minimum floor standard” (less than 60% of the children reaching a basic level in English and Maths at 11, and where children make below-average progress between seven and 11). Local authorities with particularly large numbers of struggling primaries will be identified for urgent collaboration with the Department for Education to tackle a further 500 primaries. On the basis of 2010 results, there are about 1,400 primary schools below the primary minimum floor standard. Of those, about 500 have been below the floor for two or three of the last four years. A further 200 have been below standard for the last five years and 120 of those have been below the floor for more than a decade. Gove will initially target the 200. Citing the shift of political and economic power to Asia, Gove will tell his audience in Birmingham: “We have just suffered the worst financial crisis since 1929. Our economy is weighed down by a huge debt burden. Europe has major problems with debt and the euro. “Meanwhile there is a rapid and historic shift of political and economic power to Asia and a series of scientific and technological changes that are transforming our culture, economy and global politics. If we do not have a school system adapting to and preparing for these challenges, then we will face even worse crises in the years ahead.” Justifying his intervention, Gove will state “there is only so much you can do between 11 and 16,” arguing that the fate of a pupil may well be settled by the time they reach secondary school. Education policy Schools Primary schools Michael Gove Patrick Wintour guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …There’s healthy, and then there’s insensitive, argues the National Eating Disorders Association. General Mills has pulled a Yoplait commercial that NEDA says promotes anorexia and bulimia, reports Huffington Post . The ad depicts a slim woman standing in front of a refrigerator while she justifies eating a slice of raspberry cheesecake…
Continue reading …Another big milestone for Gabby Giffords: She has been discharged from the hospital and will now begin outpatient rehab, reports the Arizona Daily Star . “The congresswoman is elated,” says her spokesman. “This is a major step in her recovery and she’s feeling very good about it.” Giffords will live at…
Continue reading …Moammar Gadhafi might be a little surprised to learn that the US isn’t waging war, or even “hostilities,” on him. It’s all a matter semantics: The White House today said it does not need congressional approval under the War Powers Act to continue because its actions in Libya do not…
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